ROAD HOG: Another power-drunk idiot was zigzagging through heavy EDSA traffic before noon the other day, escorted by motorcycle cops with sirens blaring. He probably felt untouchable in his black Expedition with license plate No. WTM 685.

Now if a plain housewife has to rush her critically ill baby to the hospital, do you think she can avail herself of similar police assistance? No way!

Gen. Sonny Razon, Philippine National Police chief, should stop the dedicated use of motorcycle cops in escorting idiots in government — unless they are being whisked in an ambulance to the psychopathic hospital for permanent confinement.

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ARROGANCE: Aside from just shuffling her team, President Gloria Arroyo should pound into their heads that they are, like her, public servants paid and maintained by taxes extracted from citizens more than half of whom hardly earn enough.

If that megalomaniac on EDSA is afraid to be late for his date, he should either reschedule their tryst or move out earlier so he does not have to bully other motorists who have as much right to the road as he has.

A reminder to Big Shots in government: Once arrogance of power seeps into the mindset of those in authority, their downfall ensues.

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NOW WE KNOW: If anything good came out of the Palace plan to wrest control of the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) or scare the Lopezes into submission, it is the public understanding of why local power rates are high compared to those of our Asian neighbors.

The discussion has highlighted the fact that the problem was not just at the tailend of the generation-to-distribution flow of electricity but all over, and even beyond.

Malacanang earlier blamed Meralco even if the distribution utility was just a collection agency for many items on the electric bill — but grudgingly admitted later that the generation business (controlled by Palace cronies) contributes a lot to bloating the rates.

Now the ball is in the government court. The unbundled Meralco bill shows that most of the itemized charges padding the total amount bulging at the bottom are actually within the government’s control to shave.

Meralco has nothing to do with many of those charges, but obviously it also has some housecleaning to do.

Meantime, the government can focus on administrative reforms, remedial legislation, boosting of technical efficiencies, and the reining in of greed in the National Power Corp. and other sectors in the system.

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WHAT’S WRONG?: Maybe we can proceed now without a jaundiced eye in diagnosing what ails the power industry. From having one of the lowest power costs in the world in the late 60’s, why do we now have one of the highest rates in the region?

In the 1960s, the average cost of imported fuel oil was $1.68 per barrel, translated to an average cost of only 5.8 centavos per kilowatt-hour for all Meralco customers. By the late 60’s, Meralco had the lowest power rates in Asia, and its rates were even lower than those in 43 of the 50 states in the United States. 

In the 1970s, as a consequence of a serious trade and balance of payment deficit, a floating exchange rate for the peso was adopted. By the early 1970’s, as a result of the foreign exchange rate system coupled with inflation and skyrocketing fuel prices, power rates went up.

During the martial law regime, the efforts to develop indigenous energy sources (such as geothermal, hydroelectric, and natural gas) paled in comparison to those of our neighbors. The Philippines remained predominantly dependent on coal-fired plants .

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LOCAL FUELS: Fuel accounts for a large part of the generation cost, making up from 5 percent to 40 percent of the ultimate cost of electricity to the consumer. This has the biggest impact on end-consumer prices, because fuel costs often fluctuate in the world market.

Even today, though our indigenous fuels in the mix seem to have improved to almost 70 percent, but we still have not narrowed the gap in our electricity prices vis-à-vis our neighbors. Our domestic fuels in fact appear costly.

Why? This is because despite the press releases on encouraging the use of native fuels, such as natural gas and geothermal steam, the country continues to impose heavy taxes and royalties on them.

This tax burden is unfortunate as indigenous fuels supply more than 47 percent of our electricity needs.

Indigenous fuels are made artificially more expensive than imported ones because of this tax and royalty burden.

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NATURAL GAS: Take our own natural gas from Camago-Malampaya. The power plants using this clean fuel are made to look more expensive compared to power plants burning imported coal. Reason is heavy taxes and royalties.

This treatment is sad and ironic because in neighboring countries like Thailand and Malaysia natural gas used domestically is even subsidized.

The Philippines reportedly has 10 more Camago-Malampaya fields and another 10,000 megawatt of geothermal potential out there.

There is no need to subsidize these cheaper and yet reliable potential energy source, nor impose heavy taxes on them.

What we need to do is develop them. But if government policies on taxing indigenous fuels continue, our power industry will be encouraged to build more plants that burn imported coal that contributes to air pollution and global warming.